Sisera

Sisera is the Canaanite captain whose defeat in the days of Deborah becomes one of the standing emblems of Yahweh's deliverance in the Old Testament. He commands the army of Jabin king of Hazor, fields nine hundred chariots of iron, and is finally killed not on the battlefield but in a tent at the hand of a woman. A second, much fainter Sisera surfaces centuries later among the temple servants who return from exile.

The Captain at Harosheth

The narrator introduces him as Yahweh's instrument of judgment on Israel. "And Yahweh sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, that reigned in Hazor; the captain of whose host was Sisera, who dwelt in Harosheth of the Gentiles" (Jud 4:2). The oppression is severe: "he had nine hundred chariots of iron; and twenty years he mightily oppressed the sons of Israel" (Jud 4:3). Long after the fact, Samuel will list him alongside the Philistines and Moab in the catalogue of Israel's afflictions, "But they forgot Yahweh their God; and he sold them into the hand of Sisera, captain of the host of Hazor" (1Sa 12:9).

Summoned to the Kishon

The breaking of his power begins with a word of Yahweh through Deborah to Barak. She summons him from Kedesh-naphtali (Jud 4:6) and tells him the trap is already set: "And I will draw to you, to the river Kishon, Sisera, the captain of Jabin's army, with his chariots and his multitude; and I will deliver him into your hand" (Jud 4:7). When Barak insists she go with him, Deborah accepts but warns that the honor of the day will not be his: "the journey that you take will not be for your honor; for Yahweh will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman" (Jud 4:9). Sisera, told that Barak has gone up to mount Tabor, mobilizes his full strength: "And Sisera gathered together all his chariots, even nine hundred chariots of iron, and all the people who were with him, from Harosheth of the Gentiles, to the river Kishon" (Jud 4:13).

The Rout

The battle itself is told in a single decisive sentence. "And Yahweh discomfited Sisera, and all his chariots, and all his host, with the edge of the sword before Barak; and Sisera dismounted from his chariot, and fled away on his feet" (Jud 4:15). Barak presses the pursuit "to Harosheth of the Gentiles: and all the host of Sisera fell by the edge of the sword; there was not a man left" (Jud 4:16). The poetry of Judges 5 reads the rout as a cosmic event: "From heaven fought the stars, From their courses they fought against Sisera. The river Kishon swept them away, That ancient river, the river Kishon" (Jud 5:20-21). The captain who had ridden in to crush Israel ends the day on foot.

The Tent of Jael

Sisera flees to what he takes to be neutral ground, "the tent of Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite; for there was peace between Jabin the king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite" (Jud 4:17). Jael's hospitality is calculated. "And Jael went out to meet Sisera, and said to him, Turn in, my lord, turn in to me; don't be afraid. And he turned in to her into the tent, and she covered him with a rug" (Jud 4:18). He asks for water; "she opened a bottle of milk, and gave him drink, and covered him" (Jud 4:19). Posted at the door to lie for him (Jud 4:20), she instead waits until the exhaustion takes hold: "Then Jael Heber's wife took a tent-pin, and took a hammer in her hand, and went softly to him, and struck the pin into his temples, and it pierced through into the ground; for he was in a deep sleep; so he swooned and died" (Jud 4:21). When Barak arrives in pursuit, Jael meets him at the tent door: "Come, and I will show you the man whom you seek. And he came to her; and saw that Sisera lay dead, and the tent-pin was in his temples" (Jud 4:22).

The Song of Deborah retells the same scene with concentrated force. "Blessed above women will Jael be, The wife of Heber the Kenite; Blessed she will be above women in the tent. He asked water, [and] she gave him milk; She brought him butter in a majestic dish. She put her hand to the tent-pin, And her right hand to the workmen's hammer; And with the hammer she struck Sisera, she struck through his head; Yes, she pierced and struck through his temples. At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay; At her feet he bowed, he fell; Where he bowed, there he fell down dead" (Jud 5:24-27). Deborah's word to Barak — "Yahweh will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman" — has come true to the letter.

The Mother at the Window

The song closes with one of the bleakest portraits in Scripture. While Sisera lies dead in a stranger's tent, his mother is still watching the road. "Through the window she looked forth, and cried, The mother of Sisera [cried] through the lattice, Why is his chariot so long in coming? Why do the wheels of his chariots tarry?" (Jud 5:28). Her women answer her, "and she returned answer to herself" (Jud 5:29), comforting herself with the imagined plunder: "Have they not found, have they not divided the spoil? A womb, [even] two wombs for each chief [able-bodied] man. A spoil of dyed garments for Sisera. A spoil of embroidered dyed garments, [even] double embroidered dyed garments for the neck of the queen" (Jud 5:30). The song turns from the lattice to a prayer: "So let all your enemies perish, O Yahweh: But let those who love him be as the sun when he goes forth in his might. And the land had rest forty years" (Jud 5:31).

The Subduing of Jabin

Sisera's death is the hinge of Jabin's ruin. "So God subdued on that day Jabin the king of Canaan before the sons of Israel. And the hand of the sons of Israel prevailed more and more against Jabin the king of Canaan, until they had destroyed Jabin king of Canaan" (Jud 4:23-24). Long after the song was sung, the psalmist will reach back for this victory as a pattern of what he asks Yahweh to do again: "Do to them as to Midian, As to Sisera, as to Jabin, at the river Kishon" (Ps 83:9).

Sisera Among the Nethinim

The name appears once more, generations later, in the lists of those who came back from Babylon. Among the Nethinim, the temple servants, "the sons of Barkos, the sons of Sisera, the sons of Temah" (Ezr 2:53), and again in Nehemiah's parallel register, "the sons of Barkos, the sons of Sisera, the sons of Temah" (Ne 7:55). This is a different Sisera, the head of a household whose descendants serve in the postexilic temple. The text says nothing of him beyond the name, but its quiet survival in a service roster is its own kind of comment on the older story: a Canaanite name on the lips of those who minister to Yahweh.